Artificial skin may reduce need for grafts

A long-lasting artificial skin which is "fully and consistently integrated into the human body" has shown promising results in early clinical trials.

The technology could revolutionise the treatment of burns and skin damage, offering a less painful alternative to skin grafts and reduced scarring.

Paul Kemp and colleagues at British biotech company Intercytex, which developed the living "skin", say it appears to work better than other substitutes tried in the past - these have biodegraded in situ after a few weeks.

Tests show the new membrane integrated fully by 28 days, producing a closed and healed wound site.

Mimicking nature

Called ICX-SKN, the artificial skin mimics the process of natural wound healing. It is made up of a matrix of fibrin, which is a protein found in healing wounds. Fibroblasts - cells that produce collagen in natural skin - are integrated into the matrix.

The matrix can be implanted into the wound, where it integrates with the patient's own skin, closing the wound.

In the study, the researchers cut small, oval sections of skin from the arms of six healthy volunteers, and inserted the artificial skin into their wounds. Within 28 days the wounds had fully closed, and showed relatively little scarring.

Stephen Minger, a cell biologist at King's College London, UK, who was not involved in the study, calls the results "a real breakthrough" in wound healing and regenerative medicine in general.

"To have an off-the-shelf skin replacement product that can be used in large numbers of patients will revolutionise the treatment of burned and skin-damaged patients," he says.

Skin grafts taken from another part of the patient's body are currently the only option for treating serious wounds, but this is painful and creates a new wound in the process.

Intercytex now plans to test ICX-SKN on larger wounds.

The research appears in the current issue of the journal Regenerative Medicine.

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